The Ballad of Never After book review

The Ballad of Never After by Stephanie Garber
Series: Once Upon a Broken Heart #2
on September 13, 2022
Pages: 403
Goodreads

Not every love is meant to be.
After Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, betrays her, Evangeline Fox swears she'll never trust him again. Now that she’s discovered her own magic, Evangeline believes she can use it to restore the chance at happily ever after that Jacks stole away.
But when a new terrifying curse is revealed, Evangeline finds herself entering into a tenuous partnership with the Prince of Hearts again. Only this time, the rules have changed. Jacks isn’t the only force Evangeline needs to be wary of. In fact, he might be the only one she can trust, despite her desire to despise him.
Instead of a love spell wreaking havoc on Evangeline’s life, a murderous spell has been cast. To break it, Evangeline and Jacks will have to do battle with old friends, new foes, and a magic that plays with heads and hearts. Evangeline has always trusted her heart, but this time she’s not sure she can...

I have been flying through this series, and I am really enjoying all of the different aspects that are coming together. The Ballad of Never After is a great sequel that brings together everything that I loved in the first and does a great job of continuing the adventure. I do think this is a little bit of a filler book, although the story moves along, nothing particularly ground breaking happened and although the ending was intense I felt like the rest of it could have been condensed.

Characters in The Ballad of Never After

This iteration really focuses on the relationships between Jacks and Evangeline, which is an interesting concept within itself. There seems to be a shift in power in The Ballad of Never After and Evangeline grows a back bone and starts to question Jacks a little more. It definitely made for interesting reading and I thoroughly enjoyed the more romantic parts of the story. They as a pair definitely became cemented in my eyes as favourites, I just really enjoyed the dynamics throughout this book, it was great to see both characters to not only grow together but also apart.

I do think this book could have benefitted with a few more supporting characters to add a little more to the story. I think there was a lack of Lala for example which would have added a little more Evangeline time where she wasn’t focused on the two men in her life. It felt as though those interactions were missing, and the book felt a little thin and very focused without the little side moments.

Bad bits in The Ballad of Never After

I think for me The Ballad of Never After seemed to really narrow, there was very little outside of the main quest and although we had a nice moment in the middle there was nothing else. We were skipping through the story and a lot of things happened with no real explanation or expostion and although I really enjoyed the focus on the characters I kind of wish we had had the best of both worlds. It definitely would have been possible to have both, but it was a missed opportunity.

Also the ending also threw me for a loop, everything happened SO quickly it was almost like all of the build up had been for nothing. I knew that there wasn’t a huge amount that could be said but we definitely could have had more. There was a lot thrown in our faces all at once and with very little expansion.

Good bits

Despite its flaws this book held my attention and I did really fall in love with the characters all over again. It was interesting to see the quest take shape and the various obstacles that stood in their way. There is something about these books that seem to pull me in and although there is potential for a better storyline the simplicity is something I really enjoyed about this storyline.

For those that have read the book will know my favourite part was the Inn, I loved the normalcy of it. The time they spend in The Hollow meant nothing to the story but it has some of my favourite moments of the entire book.

What now?

I have actually finished the series, and I’m glad I did. I would definitely recommend it if you’re looking for a good retelling which doesn’t actually retell a particular story if that makes sense?

Have you read this series? What was your favourite book? Let me know in the comments.